Māori Television on the move

At Nga Aho Whakaari’s Hau A Tau last week, one of the questions asked at the end of Paora Maxwell’s presentations was when everybody would find out if the broadcaster was planning to up sticks from its Newmarket headquarters.

“Very soon,” Maxwell responded. There was some debate about what unit of time “soon” should be measured in, but a week is very soon considering the amount of time the discussion has been going on for.

Māori Television will move to a new site at 441-443 East Tāmaki Road, East Tāmaki, and begin broadcasting from there “in or about June 2017”.

Board Chair, Georgina te Heuheu, said a long-term lease of the new site would offer a high degree of operating certainty and meet future operational needs. She called it “the biggest decision to date that Māori Television has had to make from an operational point of view”, and said, ““We believe this decision best supports Māori Television to realise its vision of revitalising te reo Māori me ngā tikanga Māori.”

The decision-making criteria took into account the financial cost, ability to build or convert existing space for a studio, ability to retain and attract key talent, access to public transport and arterial routes, and proximity to Māori communities and facilities such as kōhanga reo, kura and marae.

Māori Television also said there would be no impact on viewers as a result of the move.